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Monday, April 10, 2006

One of the things I do "for a living" is run participants in psychology experiments. For my own research, one of the things I have the participants do is a creativity task in which they come up with as many ideas as they can based on a sentence or drawing (e.g. think of as many unusual uses for tin cans as you "can" ). Today, one of my participants, after having been read the instructions and told they can begin, just sat there. He didn't write anything; rather, he chose to just stare off into space.

It's not like it's a hard task or that it reveals sensitive information. I think it'd be pretty fun to do. Even if it wasn't fun, it's gotta beat sitting in a chair doing absolutely nothing. This made me realize that I have no idea what was going through this guy's mind. I will never understand what it's like to be him. We're both human beings, but when put in a situation like my experiment, he would choose to sit and do nothing, while I can't even fathom why anyone would do that.

This realization was kinda cool, because it means that my branch of psychology (personality: examining differences between people rather than similarities) is worthwhile. It may seem obvious that people differ in important ways, but when you read countless articles describing how humans, in general, work, you start to think that everyone is pretty much the same.

A few weeks ago another participant told me I look like a movie star. "The one where they go in his head", said the participant. Damn...he meant John Malkovich. I like Malkovich as an actor 'n all, but he's not the most attractive guy.

I think that if someone looks like a celebrity, you should only point out the resemblence if the celebrity is considered attractive. No matter how much a girl looks like Mimi from The Drew Carey Show (see left), you should not tell her that. You'd probably make her cry.

I don't think I look like John Malkovich too much. I mean, we're both going bald, but the resemblence ends there. Or does it? Here is a test: is this photograph of me or of John Malkovich?

that is totally interesting how that guy just didn't care. I would be trying to come up with all sorts of crazy and wonderful things to try to impress you and do "well". I'm an overachiever anyway, and I don't want to let John Malkovich down.

I have an old shock machine on display at home. I've never tested to see if it still works (any volunteers?), but I guess it's proof that psychologists really have used shocks in the past. Ghostbusters-style.

I don't think it's so bad *looking* like Malkovich, in comparison to harbouring his extremely questionable, Zionist opinions. Can't say I appreciate his tendency to spout mindless death threats, as a reaction to those that may disagree with him.

About Phronk

My name is Mike. Some people call me Phronk. I'm a person, and I live in London, Ontario, Canada. I write a lot, hence the blog, but also do a lot of other stuff, including: eating, reading, watching stuff on screens, sleeping, using web sites, and walking. I have a PhD in psychology, which is why I'm so smart and you have to call me "doctor." I research and analyze technology for a living. Now you know everything about me.